JERUSALEM (AP) — A dentist and other passengers wrestled with a violent copilot. A plumber seized the controls of the plane as it plunged toward the desert. And that's after the captain managed to open the cockpit door while being stabbed, helping to save all 174 people on board the Israel-bound flight.
As the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, put it: “Hollywood isn’t creative enough to come up with stories like this!”
While major questions remained unanswered Thursday about the attacker and his motivation, the tale of everyday heroes saving the FlyDubai flight from disaster quickly became legend.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warmly embraced the plumber shortly after the passengers’ arrival in Tel Aviv late Wednesday, and later posted a five-star review for Yaniv Hayoun’s professional services, calling him “a hero who has saved many lives.”
“He can help you too — I highly recommend him!” Netanyahu added on X.
Hayoun was among several Israelis recommended for the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, while Indian Capt. Smit Machchhar was praised by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “a HERO.”
Many of the details emerged in a rush shortly after the passengers, most of them Israeli, landed back home to cheers and waving flags.
Hayoun, apologizing for his bloody shirt, within minutes was telling the prime minister and journalists what happened.
There had been little time for him and the others to think. Passengers screamed after spotting the copilot stabbing the captain, and the flight from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to the Israeli city of Tel Aviv began a steep dive. Some believed they were about to die.
A handful of Israelis reacted, hurtling up the aisle after the badly wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door. That was crucial, as cockpit doors are typically locked to prevent hijackings.
They had to struggle, Hayoun said, with the captain’s body resting against it.
Hayoun said the copilot appeared to be trying to damage the plane’s controls. He grabbed the copilot, and others began struggling with the man.
Hayoun then tackled the controls. He had no training, but he remembered what he had seen in movies.
“I asked him, how did you know how to do that? And he said, ‘Well, I, I watched these air disaster films,’” Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday.
It was not clear who among the passengers had security experience, though military service is compulsory for most men and women in Israel.
Soon, crew who had been traveling on the plane stepped in to stabilize it, issuing a mayday call and seeking a place to land.
"He managed to stabilize the plane by the skin of his teeth," another Israeli praised for intervening, Asaf Rajuan, told journalists. Aviation experts have marveled that the plane didn’t crash after a descent so sharp that the rudder was torn away.
The handful of Israeli passengers grappled with the copilot for several minutes before subduing him and binding his hands with the cord from a set of headphones.
One of them, Dr. Shota Musayev, a dentist, also attended to the captain, who appeared to have lost a lot of blood. “He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him,” Musayev said.
In video that Musayev shot and shared with The Associated Press, the captain lay on the floor of the cabin, saying his head was in pain.
Musayev later told journalists he and the other responders knew they'd had just seconds to act before a “critical event.”
But even with the copilot bound and subdued, they were scared that other attackers might be on the plane. They sent other people around the cabin to stand by.
“We didn’t know where we were going to land. Underneath us there was only desert. We were afraid that they were taking us to a hostile country,” Rajuan said. “We didn’t know who to trust. We didn’t know if the pilot was with us or not … We started suspecting the flight attendants, too.”
Finally, just about an hour after the plane issued a distress call, it made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Now, investigators from across the region are working to understand what led to the attack. The copilot still has not been publicly identified.
As of Thursday evening, the world had not yet heard from the central hero, the captain, who India’s Embassy in the United Arab Emirates said was “in good health and recovering well.”
Associated Press reporter Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed.
This version restores comments that an earlier version mistakenly said were Hayoun's.
Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun, with blood stains on his shirt, who was aboard a Flydubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, is welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Tomer Appelbaum)
U.S. President Donald Trump says it's “possible” he may ramp up bombing of Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections and that he rejected Iran's latest peace offer because it's not good enough.
Fighting between Houthi rebels and government forces overnight stirred fears that the Iran-backed rebels may be advancing toward Taiz City in southwestern Yemen.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage is available here.
Trump said in a Time magazine interview published Thursday that he won't now accept proposals from Iran that “he wouldn't have approved a year ago.”
He left open the possibility of resuming bombing Iran after the Nov. 3 election. He refused to offer details, telling journalists, "I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?”
The U.S. president told Time magazine that he only heard about those reports on the same day that the Sept. 28 interview was conducted with Time reporters, adding “I can't imagine this.”
Trump said had Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu been forewarned, “he would have done something about it" or "would have had people at least alert.”
An Israeli newspaper reported that Netanyahu was directly warned by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a major offensive just days before the militant group attacked on Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu strongly rejected the report.
In the same Time magazine interview, Trump repeatedly avoided answering directly whether Netanyahu should be reelected in elections later this month.
Trump said that he's “not involved in politics anymore” and touted his own record on Israel.
But he said Netanyahu shouldn't be underestimated even if "people have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times.”
Of Netanyahu’s opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, Trump said: “I don’t hear bad things about him.”
Iran-backed Houthi rebels clashed with government forces overnight into Thursday in residential neighborhoods in eastern Taiz, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Mokha, which the Houthis seized last month.
A main road linking Taiz and Aden was cut off due to the latest clashes.
Al-Thawra Hospital, located a few kilometers from the clashes, received six bodies and 35 wounded people Thursday, according to hospital manager Abdelrahman al-Sabry.
The official told The Associated Press by phone Thursday the number of dead and wounded was similar to those in early September, when fighting was intense before clashes de-escalated.
Renewed violence in Yemen has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands. The Houthis captured the strategic city of Mokha and a number of Red Sea islands last month, extending their reach to the key maritime waterway of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
It was the Houthis’ biggest land grab in years, and ended a 2022 ceasefire that largely stopped major fighting in Yemen’s 12-year civil war.
Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said Thursday the rebels targeted a power distribution station in the area of Medina two days earlier. The strike shut down a transformer, but didn't affect the power grid. The Houthis have yet to respond to the claim.
By Marzouk al-Jaberi and Fatma Khaled
Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Britain’s ambassador in Tehran on Thursday to “strongly protest” allegations by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham linking Iran to a sabotage plot at RAF Fairford, Iranian state television reported.
The ministry dismissed allegations that Iran was connected to the alleged plot as “baseless” and called on the British government to provide an official explanation and change its approach toward Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also posted on X that the U.K. was "barking up the wrong tree.”
Netanyahu told Fox News Thursday that the suspect in the FlyDubai incident was an Omani national who got through a loophole in Israeli constraints barring pilots from countries like Oman that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel.
He said both countries are “interested in making sure this doesn’t happen again" and warned that “it might be attempted again because we have indications that Iran and its proxies are trying to conduct attacks against Israel and Israelis right now in this election season.”
Yaniv Hayoun, a passenger aboard the FlyDubai flight, said after arriving in Tel Aviv Wednesday night that the two British pilots who safely brought the aircraft in to land were sitting "one row in front of me, row six, and I was in row seven.”
The Soundstorm music festival in Saudi Arabia has been canceled for this year, and organizers said it will return in 2027.
No reason was given for the cancellation. The festival, which in the past has featured international stars including Bruno Mars, Cardi B and DJ Khaled, is the latest major entertainment event in the kingdom to be cancelled this year.
Organizers MDLBEAST had earlier announced the cancellation of the 1001 music festival in Riyadh, which was scheduled for the end of the month. A week ago, organizers postponed the sixth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival from December to the fourth quarter of 2027.
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
Passengers who experienced an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, during a flight on FlyDubai plane, arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Tarek al-Salami, 7, who was displaced from the city of Mokha and is showing symptoms of malnutrition, sits on a bed while receiving treatment at a therapeutic feeding center in Buraiqa, on the western outskirts of Aden, Yemen, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Israeli passengers who had been aboard a FlyDubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia are welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli passenger Haim Lazarovich, who experienced an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, during a flight on FlyDubai plane, arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun, with blood stains on his shirt, who was aboard a Flydubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, is welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Tomer Appelbaum)
